The Virgin Spring

The Virgin Spring

Original Title: Jungfrukällan

Directed by: Ingmar Bergman

Sweden, 1960

Drama, 89min

Distributed by: Criterion.

I’ve stated several times that Ingmar Bergman was one of the best screenwriters ever - which he was, making it kind of ironic that the movie to pop the Cinezilla Bergman cherry wasn’t written by Bergman at all, but by Ulla Isaksson.

Ulla Isaksson was a Swedish author who wrote just over a dozen screenplays for TV and film between 1953 and 2001. The first being Hampe Faustman’s Kvinnohuset 1953 known outside Sweden as Caged Women and the last movie - A Song for Martin directed by Billie August made after her passing in 2000 which was based on her experiences of her husbands demise due to Alzheimer’s disease.

Bergman was an admirer of Isaksson, and she was one of the few writers apart from himself that wrote scripts for his films. The three of them being Nära Livet 1958 (Brink of Life), Jungfrukällan 1960 (The Virgin Spring), and De två saliga 1986 (The Blessed Ones).

Yes it was Ulla Isaksson who wrote the original story behind Bergman’s haunting The Virgin Spring, which twelve years later inspired Wes Craven’s Last House on The Left 1972, which inspired Aldo Lado’s Night Train Murders 1975, (marketed in the US as Last House Part II) which encouraged Ruggero Deodato’s Last House by the Edge of the Park 1980, and finally saw itself being remade in 2009 by Dennis Iliadis again as Last House on the Left, which by this time the movie has nothing to do with Isaksson’s story anymore as it this time around credits Wes Craven for that earlier film. Craven credits Isaksson in the opening titles of his version.

Still, it’s an entertaining thought that Ulla Isaksson’s original script inspired someone to make a cheap horror flick take on her story, opening the floodgates for some of the most renown exploitation movies of all time.

Isaksson herself was no stranger to controversy as her first movie, Faustman’s Kvinnohuset 1953, about a house for single working women starring Annalisa Ericson and Eva Dahlbeck,from those great Arne Mattson detective capers “The Hillman” movies, and Inga Tillblad also got in trouble with that first ever board of review institution. The movie contained suicides, murder and even insinuated homosexuality. This lesbianism caused the censors to protest and demanded that the scene be drastically shortened.

Isaksson frequently wrote of women, strong and weak, in threatened situations, and almost always with a very feminist edge to them, mature women ensnaring themselves in unfaithfulness creating strained triangular dramas, and younger women coming of age, finding themselves in their womanhood. Themes of suicide and rape and death also permeate her works.

Which brings me up to The Virgin Spring…

The Virgin Spring is the tale of a family devastated by the death of their daughter, and the drastic measures they take to avenge her when they by chance stand face to face with the perpetrators. It’s a dark, vile and disturbing movie, leaving nothing to your imagination as Bergman cunningly allows murder to be justified... or does he?

Set in a 14th century Sweden, young Karin, [Birgitta Pettersson] who in a typical teenage manner drones her days away being flirtatious, lazy and devious (that’s exactly how I interpret it), trying to ease her way out of her chore, and manipulating her mother into letting her get her way and wearing her finest blue dress. Her mother, Märeta [Birgitta Valberg] tells her to take a Virgin Mary candles to the monastery on the other side of the woods. What is it with churches and virgins? It has to be a virgin who takes the candles. Together with the family maid Ingeri [Gunnel Linblom] the two women set about their journey. Obviously she tries to worm her way out of the task, but is told to go anyway. On her route the two women come upon a shaman’s [Axel Slangus] cabin where Ingeri has disturbing visions of three men riding - three dead men claims the shaman before trying to take advantage of her. Ingeri terrified flees from the shaman and Karin takes to riding towards the church on her own and soon she bumps into three herdsmen strolling in the woods. The three men (well two men and a kid – Ove Porath, Axel Dürberg and Tor Isedal) tell Karin a tale of despair, playing off he pity so that they can receive some of her food. Going about her usual manner, she falls for the flattery and as the situation grows more and more threatening she tries to flirt and charm her way out of the situation, but fate has other plans for you my pretty…

The herdsmen rape and kill Karin as Ingeri, still lost in the woods, observes from a distance without interfering. The men hide the body in a shallow grave and take to the road again. As the cold night sets in they come to the farm of Töre, [Max Von Sydow] Karin's father, who offers them a place to spend the night. Töre does this good deed, even though he and Märeta are worried sick for their daughter who has yet to return from her trip to the monastery. After a terrifying guilt inducing bedtime story that the old farmhand [Allan Enwall in his first role for Bergman] tells the boy, his older companions knock him out after he off camera freaks out and screams. Märeta goes to him only to meet the two herders, who is a sinister twist of fate try to repay the family kindness by giving them a bloodied blue dress that they claim belonged to their deceased sister…

Märeta keeps her calm, and breaks down in tears as she realises the fate of Karin. Töre demands that Ingeri tells him what she knows, Ingeri filled with guilt for wishing Karin dead when she met the shaman and not intervening, confesses and tells of the terrible crime she witnessed. Töre prepares his vengeance, cleanses his soul and slays the three herdsmen one by one as they scream for mercy. Töre looks upon the blood on his hands and begs for god’s forgiveness. The family walk to the murder location and as they lift Karin’s body from the ground a spring of freshwater burst forth – The Virgin Spring.

There’s a lost of brilliant little details going on in this film, especially the way that Bergman set’s up Karin. It’s this eye for detail that make Bergman the genius that he was, and the way he moves his characters in and out of light and dark places, shifting between positive and negative values. You never really know what a characters true traits are.

Karin sleeps late, keeping the others waiting for her, and obviously is leading a fantasy life where she dreams of wealth and handsome men courting her. Karin’s mother Märeta tells Ingeri the maid, to prepare a packed lunch for her daughter, and Bergman has Ingeri prepare the lunch by squeezing a toad in between two pieces of bread. This even before we have been introduced to Karin. Then her mother tries to awaken her, and Karin manipulates her mother into letting her wear the exact dress that she wants – her finest monist precious dress sown by fifteen maidens at once – even though her mother objects that it’s not an everyday gown. Karin comes off as quite a spoiled brat to be honest. Father Töre enters and continues to pamper his little princess, who she manipulates into letting her take Ingeri with her to the church… Ingrid the servant dirty, tattered clothed, pregnant and obviously not with a mate, the complete opposite of Karin.

These scenes work in two ways, first they set up a rift between Ingeri and Karin. We quickly understand that Ingrid doesn’t like Karin too much, hence the toad sandwich, there’s an animosity between the two probably same age girls. Then the parents tender care and inability to resist Karin’s demands. These scenes indicate just how valuable Karin is to her parents, and that they will do, give and budge to her every demand. She’s their everything in other words. Finally Karin asks that Ingeri comes along, and it’s easy to read the subtext that Karin is Ingeri’s tormentor, as is made glass clear when she talks down to and taunts the pregnant Ingeri a while later.

The bloke that the two girls meet on their way to the monetary and his frisky talk with Karin saying “Thanks for last night Karin!” lets us in on the dark secret that Karin isn’t the innocent little girl that her parents take her to be, perhaps too much mead and late night romping are why she was still in bed that morning.

The rape and murder of Karin is disturbing, as we don not wish this fate for her even though she’s been established as an unsympathetic character. Death is too harsh a punishment for her. The vengeance that her parents take is also unsettling, because they have been presented in such a positive light. Their love for their spoiled daughter, their kindness to strangers as they take in the three herdsmen, giving them shelter, food at their table and offering them work on the farm. These are god-fearing people who mean no harm to anyone. That’s what makes the transition and terrifying revenge killings so complex for us to take in.

Finally my favourite scene in the movie; after Töre has been told of Karin’s death, there is a very symbolic little image where he stands alone staring at a lone birch tree, man against nature, man against God if you will. He rejects his faith, wrestles the tree to the ground, and ritualistically slays it. He uses the branches to cleanse himself, beating away the last of his faith before ordering Ingeri to fetch the butchers knife. It’s a really mesmerising scene, free from dialogue until the knife request. After the slaughter he stares at his bloody hands and begs God for forgiveness in an attempt to redeem his actions. Those images say more than any dialogue ever could. Excellent stuff, the stuff that makes a masterpiece.

The Virgin Spring caused quite a stir when it was released in Sweden igniting spiteful debates in its wake. The graphic rape (well graphic for 1960) and the violent tone of the movie stunned and shocked the audiences, and where heavily criticized by many new papers as audiences in Sweden had never before seen such violence and aggressive atrocities on the screens and the movie was reported to the authorities for its provocative content. Luckily the movie was acquitted and to prove the critics wrong the movie won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1961. The old saying you can’t become a prophet in your own land comes to mind once again.

Now this is in no way an indepth review or analysis of this fantastic movie, quite the oposite. There isn’t enough blog space in the world to do this film justice, but this is merely some of my personal thoughts on the film. A film I keep returning to over and over again.

It is still a very effective movie although I wouldn’t call it a horror film. Once again the grandeur of Bergman was that he could summon up the most disturbing fiends and darkness in everyday life by the slightest twist of hand, exposing the inner demon of everyman and woman in his very stylish dramas. The guy was a genius. The sleaziness, nudity, gratuitous gore and teeth grinding grit, was the bag of tricks that the exploitation films that followed brought with them. The main narrative is the same, young women meets violent death - parents take violent revnenge! And never forget that we have Bergman and Isaksson to thank for those splendid grind house flicks; Last House on The Left, Night Train Murders and Last House on the Edge of the Park, that shocked a nation all over again.

Image:

Black & White Full Screen 1:33:1

Audio:

Dolby Digital Mono, Swedish Dialogue, English subtitles or English Dub optional

Extras:

Being a Criterion disc you know that there’s going to be a fair deal of extras giving further insight into the movie, There’s an introduction to the film by Ang Lee, an Audio Commentary by Bergman expert Birgitta Pettersson, an audio recording of a seminar held by Bergman at the American Film Institute in 1975, and a booklet with essays on the film and a letter from Bergman concerning the controversial rape scene.

I can't find a trailer, but here's a few neat posters.

The Night Visitor

The Night Visitor
Directed by: Laslo Benedek
Thriller / Horror, 1971
USA/Sweden, 106 min
Distributed by: VIC Home Entertainment

Laslo Benedek, a Hungarian filmmaker who was brought to Hollywood by MGM studios to make movies in the USA. After a being set in charge of reshoots on Gregory Ratoff’s Song of Russia 1944, uncredited of course, he finally got a chance to direct his first major studio movie; The Kissing Bandit 1948 starring old blue eyes Frank Sinatra in what has been called Sinatra’s worst movie ever. A confusing mash up of western, comedy and musical the movie failed to make an impact and Benedek seemed to have wasted his chance. Three years later, 1951, he’d definitely learned his lesson and directed Death of a Salesman based on Arthur Miller’s play featuring Kevin McCarthy and Cameron Mitchell in leading roles. The movie won Benedek a Golden Globe for best director.

But his best movie was directed in 1953 as the classic biker film The Wild One starring Marlon Brando and Lee Marvin set the template for those later biker exploitation films of the sixties and seventies, and stayed banned in the UK until 1968.

After almost twelve years of directing TV serials like Perry Mason, The Outer Limits, The Fugitive, Rawhide and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Benedek returned to direct his last movies where the impressive American Swedish co-production The Night Visitor 1971 can be found.

The Night Visitor is a superbly crafted little gem that surprisingly has gone missing for reasons that are quite hard to understand. It’s a fascinating thriller with some of the greatest Swedish and British actors, packs a really suspenseful plot and has some great scenes that deserve to be brought forward in a new light.

Filmed on location in Denmark and Sweden, yes the Mental Institute is Varberg Castle in Sweden, this co-production between Sweden and USA tells the tale of Salem [Max Von Sydow – from all those stunning Ingmar Bergman movies; William Friedkin’s The Exorcist 1973, Dario Argento’s great return to the genre he perfected – Sleepless 2001, and soon to be seen in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood 2010 to name a few of the great movies this iconic actor has been in] who is trying to take revenge for being sent to the mental institution for a murder he did not commit. Through an ingenious use of a self crafted skeleton key, his clothes, bedding and fishing line he crafts a rope that allows him to exit and return to his cell at the institute as he wants. This is why he’s running around in the snow in his underwear every time he’s out of his cell.

And when he’s out of his cell, the innocent man ironically becomes a murderer in his sinister plan to create justice. The plan is complex (although simple in narrative form) as Salem plans to murder and leave threads that lead to his brother in law Dr. Anton Jenks [Per Oscarsson – Arne Mattson’s Vaxdockan 1962 and more recently as Holger Palmgren in the Stieg Larsson Millennium trilogy – which I have no interest in seeing at all]. The first night sees him entering the Doctor’s house as Jenks discusses with his wife Ester [Liv Ullman – Again a fantastic Bergman actor and star of Jan Troell’s brilliant Utvandrarna 1971 and Nybyggarna 1972. Her portrayal of the fragile and vulnerable Kristina should have given her an Oscar in my opinion] and Emmie [Hanne Bork – who only ever starred in this movie] the ” situation with Salem”. Salem steals morphine, a syringe and one of the Doctors ties before paying a visit to Bitte [Lottie Freddie, who also only ever starred in this one] a young woman that he seduces and leaves dead. Jenks receives a call from Bitte’s parents and he goes out to their house to examine he young woman, and the first of Salem’s set up devices is exposed. A bundle of ties have been shoved into Jenks doctor bag. When the police Inspector [Trevor Howard - Carol Reed’s The Third Man 1949 and Carmilo Vila’s The Unholy 1988] starts investigating, he quickly starts putting the pieces together, a strangled victim and a distressed doctor with ties in his bag, ties that later prove to have the same perfumed chest rub as the first victim was wearing. Back at home, Jenks and Ester discover that Salem has been there too and bludgeoned Emmie to death!

Oscarsson is brilliant in his movie as the terrified Jenks to whom Salem shows himself briefly before going about his vengeance plan. Oscarsson twitches, jerks and screams in fear and panic that Salem has escaped from the asylum - supposedly impossible. He faints and that’s when the darned parrot is introduced. A parrot that will be of great importance for the final twist at the end of the film, and was the title of the Swedish release of the movie: Papegojan.

The Inspector pays a visit to Dr. Kemp [Andrew Kier from all those wonderful Hammer movies – Terrence Fisher’s Dracula: Prince of Darkness 1966, Roy Ward Baker’s Quatermass and the Pit 1967, Seth Holt’s Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb 1971. Not forgetting Gordon Flemying’s Daleks’ Invasion Earth: 2150AD 1966 which sees Hammer legend Peter Cushing returning as Dr. Who for the second time]. Dr. Kemp runs the institute - a great use of Varberg Castle, that really looks like a menacing and freezing place to be captive - where the Inspector hopes to further his inquiries into the killings and to see if there is any chance of Salem actually being responsible for the murders as Jenks claims. He sits down with Salem who delivers a splendid reference to that great scene in Bergman’s The Seventh Seal 1957 as he asks The Inspector ”Would you care for a game of chess?” Not only a reference to that iconic scene, but also a great metaphor for the movie plot as Salem taunts the detective and the Jenks family throughout, having planned all his moves to the smallest detail. This eye for details and planning ahead is reflected in a conversation he holds with the warden Pop [Arthur Hewlett] as they play a friendly game of chess though the food hatch in the cell door prior to Salem’s first revealed escape.

Salem acknowledges the crime he is institutionalised for and tauntingly set the game with the detective in motion. But the detective isn’t having it, he knows that there is something fishy going on and even though all the evidence points towards Doctor Jenks, he’s hot quite sure that Salem is telling the whole truth, and is actually locked away as tight as Doctor Kemp and Salem claim that he is.

Needless to say by this time the plot has been established and the suspense wound up to a great high, and the last act will have you biting your nails as you move towards the climax, revealing how all the crimes and Salem’s plot are connected.

Holding an almost Hitchcockian feeling with the unease of Bergmanesque despair to it, the movie plays off traditional ”let the audience in on the plot before the characters” trick so frequently used by Hitchcock, and ”underdog getting away with the perfect revenge” a excellent choice as we almost always by default become empathetic towards underdog characters. And as soon as we know reasons for his incarceration we start to sympathise with him and actually want him to succeed in his plan. Add to that the anguish of the characters that all shift between terrified feeble beings to coldblooded maniacs just like Bergman frequently portrayed his characters, and it gives a fascinating and intriguing blend.

Von Sydow gives an illustrious performance as Salem the crazed man on a mission, and does a great deal of running around in the freezing cold inter in his undies, and a fair amount of climbing to and from high spaces. His second escape from the asylum is very tense and it’s a delight to watch his cunning devices and methods as he once again breaks out of his captivity. But the splendid finale sees him frantically, and painstakingly returning to the prison fighting both the elements and time, as he must return to his cell before the police open the door to his cell.

Benedek brings out the best in his actors that are top notch here; Sydow, Oscarsson, Ullman and Howard are terrific, supporting cast members, Kier, Rupert Davies as Judge Clemens [also seen in Michael Reeves Wichfilnder General 1968, Freddie Francis Dracula has Risen from the Grave 1968 and the leading man of Pete Walker’s Frightmare 1974), and Arthur Hewlett’s gumpy gnome like prison warden Pop are very entertaining.

The movie also has a great soundtrack by the masterful Henry Mancini – composer of such classic tunes as the Pink Panther Theme, the score to Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce 1985 (uncredited of course...), and the beautiful Moonriver from the Breakfast at Tiffany’s 1961 soundtrack.

And to top it all off, the movie was produced by Mel Ferrer, and I’m surprised that his notoriety within the European genre pieces of the seventies and eighties (Alberto De Martino’s The Antichrist 1974, Sergio Martino’s excellent Giallo The Suspicious Death of a Minor 1975, Flavio Mogherini’s The Girl in the Yellow Pyjamas 1977, René Cardona’s Guyana: Crime of the Damned 1979, Sergio Martino’s Big Alligator River 1979 Umberto Lenzi’s Eaten Alive, and Nightmare City both 1980) would have attracted the attention of genre fans, and it by far the most interesting piece he would produce.

It still puzzles me why this movie became a lost gem, it’s well written, splendidly acted and has a very captivating narrative and an excellent overall atmosphere to it. The cinematography by award winning Henning Kristiansen is fine, there’s a splendid little twist at the end, a very Hichcockian twist if you like, and the movie is really very entertaining. It’s my highest recommendation that you seek out this movie and enjoy the magic of this lost gem as soon as possible. You won’t be disappointed.

Image:

1.33:1 - Full frame 4x3

Audio:

Dolby Digital Mono 2.0. English Dialogue, that is spoken by the actors in their broken English, which is fascinating to hear.

Extras:

Previews for other titles released by VCI Home Video, among them; Ugo Liberatore’s semi sleazy Oxford decadence flick May Morning from 1970 starring Jane Birkin and John Steiner and Bill L. Norton’s cult TV movie Gargoyles 1972 with it’s special effects and scary monsters crafted by the late Stan Winston. There's a little photo gallery and short biographies for several of the cast and crew and finally the Theatrical Trailer.

Here's a glimpse at the first part of the movie that should lure you into the charm of this fascinating piece of film.